（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）基于《时代周刊》商业专栏中隐喻的认知研究.pdf

华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 ii 摘摘 要要 几千年来， 隐喻一直是各门学科学者研究的热门课题。 有关隐喻的理论多不胜数， 从亚里士多德的比较论，到昆提良的替代论，到理查兹的互动论，再到莱考夫和约 翰逊的概念隐喻论。传统的隐喻观只不过将隐喻看作是一种语言现象，一种语言的 装饰品，是可有可无的。然而，越来越多的研究证明，隐喻不仅仅是一种语言现象， 更重要的是它是一种思维的方式，因而是一种认知现象。离开隐喻，人类思维将受 到限制，因而莱考夫的我们赖以生存的隐喻中提出的认知学隐喻观得到越来越 多学者的认同。 本文首先回顾了几千年来的隐喻理论，然后比较其特点，指出认知学隐喻观有较 强的阐释力，具有系统性，能提高我们对隐喻的认识。考虑到国内缺少将其系统地 应用到特定体裁中，本文以美国杂志时代周刊为研究对象，选定近期的商业专 栏，从中收集真实隐喻的例句进行分类和解释。本文共找到八种概念隐喻，并一一 讨论分析其认知隐喻基础。 研究结果表明，隐喻并不像传统学者认为的只存在于文学语篇中。商业活动中的 抽象概念大都通过隐喻概念来实现，从而为隐喻的认知研究提供了系统的真实语料。 而认知语言学的方法也为研究此类语篇中的隐喻提供了有力的工具。 本文对英语经济新闻中的隐喻进行了全面而细致的描述和概括。最后还指出了 本研究的局限性以及对相关理论研究和实践的意义。 关键词：关键词：隐喻 认知研究 商业专栏 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 i abstract metaphor has long aroused interests from various disciplines such as literature, linguistics, philosophy and psychology. there are a number of theories on metaphor, from “comparison theory” to “substitution theory”, from “interaction theory” to conceptual metaphors. the traditional view, including the semantic approaches and the pragmatic ones, considers metaphor as merely a literary matter, a rhetorical device, a compressed simile, and therefore an ornament of language. however, more and more study shows that metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon or a decoration of language. it is also related to human cognition and an increasing number of scholars began to examine metaphor from a cognitive view, such as i.a. richard, lakoff and johnson. after reviewing various theories on metaphor and comparing the advantages and disadvantages of them, this paper adopts a cognitive approach towards metaphor and conducted an empirical study in the discourse of business news. the authentic examples are all taken from the latest issues of time magazine, which cover a wide range of areas all the way from high-tech, computer industry, consumer-products, and entertainment etc. after the manual identification, eight key conceptual metaphors are classified according to the different source domains of metaphors. they are the metaphors of human, metaphors of nature, metaphors of daily things, metaphors of war, metaphors of space, metaphors of building/container, metaphors of game, and metaphors of religion. it shows that there is an abundance of metaphors in business news discourse. the metaphorical bases are analyzed in the fashion of cognitive linguistics. it is found that metaphor is central to the business news and has a role in making readers fully comprehend the discourse. metaphors provide insights into our ways of thinking. familiarity with metaphors through with abstract processes and concepts are conceptualized will also help readers, learners and teachers develop stylistic awareness of business news. however, this research is just a qualitative one, and it would be of more validity if it goes hand in hand with a quantitative study. key words: metaphors cognitive study business column 独创性声明独创性声明 本人声明所呈交的学位论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的研 究成果。尽我所知，除文中已经标明引用的内容外，本论文不包含任何其他个人或 集体已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究做出贡献的个人和集体，均已在 文中以明确方式标明。本人完全意识到，本声明的法律结果由本人承担。 学位论文作者签名：夏 萌 日期：2006 年 4 月 15 日 学位论文版权使用授权书学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，即：学校有权 保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版，允许论文被查阅和借阅。 本人授权华中科技大学可以将本学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检 索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。 保密，在_年解密后适用本授权数。 本论文属于 不保密。 （请在以上方框内打“” ） 学位论文作者签名：夏 萌 指导教师签名：许明武 日期： 2006 年 4 月 15 日 日期：2006 年 4 月 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 1 introduction metaphor, the means by which one thing is described in terms of something else, is pervasive in our life. the study of metaphor has not only been of interest to scholars in linguists, but also to those in psychology, anthropology, education, etc. before attempting to sketch a linguistic stance towards metaphor, the author of this thesis backtracks a bit and examines some existing linguistic theories of metaphor. the significance of studying metaphors metaphor has been the object of much scholarly inquiry. it is a topic much discussed by scholars dating back to thousands of years ago, when aristotle first treated it as a figure of speech. traditionally, metaphors have been regarded as figures of speech, i.e. as more or less ornamental devices used in rhetorical style. however, when a new view of metaphor, later known as the cognitive linguistic view of metaphor, was first developed by george lakoff it is a means by which people perceive and experience the world, and a means of thought and life. it is now commonplace to observe that metaphors do much more than simply decorate the discourse. in fact, whenever we turn to abstract topics, we resort to metaphors. the metaphoric turn helps us to conceptualize intangibles and complexities by placing them in a familiar context. metaphors build abstract meaning in language. they help us to learn and grasp new knowledge by analogy to the models we already possess (petrie however, it could not be neglected because of its effect on the thorough understanding of the whole passage. thirdly, although the study of metaphor in the past few decades has become subtle and sophisticated, the study of characteristics of metaphor and its translation in journalistic english has received little attention, especially in the english business news. fourthly, in order for more people to have the opportunities to have access to english newspapers and magazines, we have to do the translation work. newmark also pointed out that metaphor is at the centre of all problems of translation theory, semantics and linguistics (2002:96). and this research is supposed to provide some assistance to the translators of this kind of materials. last but not least, the author, herself, is interested in the research in both metaphors and the english business reports articles. bearing the considerations above in mind, the present research, with more than 50 latest articles from time magazine serving as the corpus, aims to study the metaphors in english business news, categorize them and analyze the characteristics. and the author hopes to give some help to enhance the reading comprehension of the english business news in journals and to accelerate the translation process. 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 5 the organizational framework of the thesis besides the introduction section at the beginning and the conclusion section at the end, the thesis consists of 4 parts, the contents of which are as follows: the introduction section of the thesis introduces the research background and explains the aim and purpose of the present study. part 1 presents a detailed review of the relevant literature in various linguistic fields. it covers the traditional and cognitive views on metaphor, and, of the two, one is devoted to the cognitive views. part 2 offers a theoretical framework and data collection for the analysis of business metaphors in a cognitive perspective. relevant concepts and methods are also explained here. part 3 describes and categorizes according to the different source domains the materials collected as corpus-more than 50 articles selected from the business column of time magazine, from december, 2004 to may, 2005. and the materials cover a wide range of areas all the way from high-tech, computer industry, consumer-products, and entertainment etc. part 4 follows up the foregoing observation. it deals with the characteristics of business metaphors and its implication for the metaphor teaching and learning. finally comes to the conclusion part which presents the main findings, limitations of the present study, and provides suggestions for future study. 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 6 1 literature review 1.1 the definition of metaphor metaphor has been a field of human inquiry for over two millennia since aristotle, who treated metaphor as implicit comparisons, based on the principles of analogy. besides aristotle, a lot of scholars have contributed to the study of metaphor, i.e. i. a. richards, max black, george lakoff, mark johnson, turner, fauconnier, to mention just a few. and so far, the study of metaphors has turned away from the study of metaphorical expressions or conceptual metaphors to the exploiting of metaphors in a lot other areas in which metaphors are treated mainly as a mechanism. metaphor derives from the greek word metaphora, which is composed by “meta-” (which means from one place to another) and “pherien” (which means to carry or to bear). its original meaning was “transferring something from one place to another” (oxford english dictionary). as a matter of fact, there have been various explanations concerning metaphor in history, so much so that specialists in the area find it hard to give a scientific definition which can cover all of its features. in ancient greek, aristotle offers us the first theory of metaphor in the poetics (1954:21, 1457b), in which he claims: “metaphor is the application to one thing of a name belonging to another thing. we may apply (a) the name of a genus to one of its species, or (b) the name of one species to its genus, or (c) the name of one species to another of the same genus, or (d) the transfer may be based on a proportion.” here, metaphor is seen as a conceptual phenomenon arising from the manipulation of the type hierarchy. aristotle regarded the command of metaphor as the mark of genus. marcus f. quintillian, the famous ancient roman rhetorician, had a further understanding: “a noun or a verb is accordingly transferred, as it were, from that place in the language to which it properly belongs to one in which there is either no proper word, or in which the metaphorical word is preferable to the proper.”(lin shuwu 1997:14) the austrian psychologist and psychiatrist sigmund freud understood metaphor in an 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 7 approach of psychoanalysis. he thought that the signified might displace all the emotional and psychological loads to the signifier; metaphor was just displacement and the value of metaphor was to displace the load to another. the rhetorician martin foss said in his symbol and metaphor in human experience, which came out in 1949: “it is not so much in the single word but in the process of speech itself, stretching over and beyond single words, in which the metaphorical move toward extension of knowledge is to be found.” ricoeur (1975) saw a metaphor as aspiring to an isomorphic relationship between its topic and vehicle. george lakoff and mark johnson regarded metaphor as “understanding and experiencing one kind of things in terms of another” (lakoff instead the 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 10 name of another thing (b) is employed to substitute for it. b has its own meanings, but, as it is used as a substitution, it gets a new meaning. for instance, in the sentence “do not be afraid of your african roots”, “roots” here substitutes for the original word “background” and thus get the new meaning of “background. we say that the word “roots” is strange because it should not have been there and it has just been “borrowed” to the position. from aristotles explanations of metaphor, a theory which is developed is often called the substitution theory: as to the subject a, there can be a metaphorical description b, or a plain one c; so “a is b” can be explained as “a is c”, in which c substitutes for b. the relation between b and c may have (a) the same connotation and the same reference; (b) different connotations but the same reference; (c) different connotations and different references. the basic idea of substitution theory is that: metaphorical term is a more decorative (or more interesting, or lively, etc.) substitution for the literal term. by “substitution”, it is believed that the metaphorically used word is to take the place of another “proper” word or phrase. the metaphorical sense of the word then arises as a result of an interaction replaces. in the process, we try to do justice to the special effects that can only be achieved by the use of metaphor, or in another word, by making this sense special. quintillian and fontanier are the representatives of this theory. they hold that, some mysterious, special sense is located in the metaphorical effect within a single word (lin shuwu 1997:14). in the example “john is a lion”, the word “lion” is used metaphorically to take the place of the phrase “a courageous man”. obviously, this is a misleading attempt. according to the substitution view, we are to ascribe to the word “lion” a second/special sense “courageous”. major defect of this theory is the difficulty to determine what is to be substituted, and by what kind of principle. to seek a substitution is not to use metaphor, but to use a word in an extended sense. it always ends by merely extolling the virtues of this special sense, without giving any substantial characterization of what this sense actually is. the theory has two points in common with the comparison theory: firstly, metaphor belongs to language merely and the effect of metaphor is at word level; secondly, the 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 11 function of metaphor is nothing but the ornament in language. the interaction theory the “interaction theory” in metaphor study is inspired by the memory of “constructivism” in psychology (a midway between two opposites: realism and nominalism in the early 20th century). this relativistic approach accounts for the variability of things according to cultural changes. our concepts are formed through the interaction between the mind and the surroundings. as a matter of fact, we have been using construction theory in interpreting the tenor and vehicle components, in which the new meaning and the ground is constructed by the juxtaposition of the tenor with the vehicle. i. a. richards sets forth his central understanding of metaphor in his book the philosophy of rhetoric. he attacks misunderstandings of the ability to use metaphor as god-given talent, by asserting that every one is born with the capability to use metaphor for better communication, because one-third of our daily discourse is metaphorical indeed (richards 1936). moving to discuss working mechanism of metaphor, he said: “in the simplest formulation when we use a metaphor, we have two thoughts of different things active together and supported by a single word, or phrase, whose meaning is the resultant of their interaction.” (richards 1936:93) he sees metaphor as in the core of language systems, an interaction of thoughts and a transaction between contexts. he first introduced such terms as “tenor”, “vehicle” and “tension” to apply “two interactive thoughts” and the incongruity between the tenor and the vehicle. generally, interaction theory can be summed up into two points: firstly, each term is interactively involved in a metaphor within a system; secondly, metaphor reflects our perspective in perceiving and observing, which is shaped in the cultural community we live in. interaction view opens a chance to understand why we speak, think and behave in certain ways, but not in others. in a cultural community, the associated common places affect our interpretation of the subject. richards understands the working mechanism of metaphor in a rather broad way, by calling all the mental process in which we perceive one thing in terms of another. in 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 12 summarizing the essence of the interaction theory, richards even mentions that human thought, by its nature, is metaphorical, and our brain is set working by the inescapable comparisons between those strange and those that are familiar. linguistic metaphor derives in this principle. traditional theories fail to see metaphor as transference between contexts as well as interaction between thoughts, and mystify the ability of mastering metaphor as god-given possession. pertaining to metaphors used in daily discourse, richards reveals the mysterious haze surrounding metaphors. richards asserts that we are all mater of metaphors, for it is in our minds already. he criticizes the rhetorical division of so-called “proper meaning” from “figurative meaning”. to him, words have no “proper meaning” at all. richards is the first to baptize the two ideas actively together in metaphor, and the research on metaphors develops into the cognitive field from then on. although richards principle in explaining the working mechanism of metaphor holds firmly, his interaction theory has not gone unchallenged. because he does not explicitly define what is tenor and vehicle. nonetheless, kittay (1987) makes up for this minor defect: “we can say that the vehicle is the idea conveyed by the literal meanings of the words used metaphorically. the tenor is the idea conveyed by the vehicle.” richards account of metaphor is an important contribution for his emphasis on the significance for the proper understanding of metaphor. but richards himself did not give us a comprehensive theory of metaphor. further development in interaction theory was made by max black. based on richards study, black developed the interaction theory of metaphor. according to black, metaphor involves the use of a word or phrase in a context different from those within which it usually appears. by placing a fresh focus in an unfamiliar frame, a speaker sets up an interaction between the associations that normally accompany each other. blacks work advances interaction theory of metaphor in at least two ways. firstly, metaphor is a matter of the whole statement, but attention focuses on a particular word. black replaces “tenor” and “vehicle” with “focus” and “frame”. the